


nothing to hide and nothing to prove

by captainangua



Series: cas has conversations [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Sam Winchester, Awkwardness, Castiel and Sam Winchester Hug, Castiel to the Rescue (Supernatural), Castiel's Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Episode: s12e01 Keep Calm and Carry On, Gen, Grieving Castiel (Supernatural), Grieving Sam Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Pining Castiel (Supernatural), Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Strategist Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: He’d had to think many times about what he’d do when Dean, inevitably, met his end in some way. But he hadn’t expected it to be so soon, or to live through it. And now eternity stretched out before him, cold and lonely and unknowable.He was so entirely lost in his own thoughts that it took him a few moments to realise that Sam’s arms were around him, holding him up.
Relationships: Castiel & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: cas has conversations [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967473
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	nothing to hide and nothing to prove

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this very fast in a strange headspace of thinking about all the points across all the seasons we could have found out how Cas felt before Dean did.
> 
> So anyway what if s12e01 was literally just cas on a grieving rampage i just think that would be neat

Cas crawled out of the crater he left in the earth and immediately wanted to crawl back in. Dean was dead. Sam was maybe dead, or worse. And Dean was dead. The angels were pathetic shadows of what they had been who all hated him. And Dean was dead. He had met the father, the creator, that he’d so longed to know, and found nothing worth admiring there.

And Dean was dead.

Dean was _dead_.

Cas wanted to crawl back into the crater in the ground and lie there for an age but Dean had said he needed Cas to look after Sam, and Sam needed looking after, if not avenging.

Cas could let purpose fill him one last time before senseless grief overtook him completely.

*

He’d been driving for an hour when he heard Sam’s prayer. It was barely a prayer – immediately snuffed out – more of a cry for help, but it was enough.

In an elegant feat of driving he felt that Dean might have appreciated, Cas slammed the brakes to his newly acquired truck and changed direction, making the tyres scream their pain out into the night. He had one friend left in the world, and he was alive and he needed Cas. So Cas was going to be there for him, whatever that took from him.

*

Almost immediately after arriving outside the place they seemed to be holding Sam, Cas came to the conclusion that he would not be able to do this alone, not as he was. He still didn’t know who these people were, but they clearly knew enough about angels to have banished him before, and enough of the Men of Letters’ bunker to break in without setting off any alarms. Whoever these people were, Cas would need more power than he had alone to ensure he could get Sam safely out of there.

Ishim answered Cas’s prayer, a little to Cas’s surprise. Apparently, he hadn’t been far, and had been curious to find out how things had finished with the Darkness.

“Fitting, that the Winchesters started it and finished it again. At least they know how to sacrifice themselves.”

Cas tried to keep his cool, reminding himself that he did need help.

“Dean saved the world. And now someone has his brother. I think they’re owed this much.”

Ishim looked at him with a face filled with insincere pity. “Of course you’d think that. Castiel, you’re free. No one is forcing you into being guardian angel watchdog to these failed vessels, especially now that one is dead and the other getting there. This isn’t you – or it doesn’t have to be.”

“So you won’t help me?”

Cas saw the smug answer in his old commander’s face before Ishim had the chance to say anything.

It was all the excuse Cas needed to enact his plan B.

In the dark of the early morning only the moon’s light flashed in reflection on the silver of his knife as Cas pulled it gently across Ishim’s throat.

As Ishim screamed in rage, Cas took his grace into himself, and, unsure if he would ever be able to open them again, he closed his eyes, trying to consolidate this new power that was actively trying to fight him from the inside. But Cas fought back and a moment later he opened his eyes. Even if they still couldn’t carry him, his wings felt stronger.

“What -”

Ishim was on the ground now, staring up at him with newly human eyes in horror. “What have you _done_?”

“You’ll be fine,” Cas assured him, and walked away towards the building alone.

They did know angels, but he knew that now.

And he was so angry.

Dean was gone and Dean had asked him to look after Sam and he deserved at least that ungranted wish to be honoured. Even if Cas had to slaughter his way through a house of humans and cannibalise his brethren’s grace once again he could not regret any of it when it was done attempting to honour that wish. Especially when he’d killed them all, and found Sam, drenched and shivering, with feet he would never be able to stand on.

Sam didn’t look at him with horror – only awe, only gratitude, as he healed Sam with a touch and helped him to his feet.

“You heard me.”

“I did.”

“Where’d all this… this juice come from.”

“I did what I had to.”

“Well, thanks. Thanks for coming for me like that.” Sam smiled wearily, and it looked as though the effort cost him dearly. “I guess it’s just you and me now, huh?”

Cas had to lean against the wall to process that. He’d had to think many times about what he’d do when Dean, inevitably, met his end in some way. But he hadn’t expected it to be so soon, or to live through it. And now eternity stretched out before him, cold and lonely and unknowable.

He was so entirely lost in his own thoughts that it took him a few moments to realise that Sam’s arms were around him, holding him up.

“I miss him too, Cas.”

That was enough. Cas hadn’t been this much of an angel in years, and yet he felt as human as he’d been in any of his worst moments of actually being reduced to humanity. Despite his heightened senses, it took him a moment to understand that he was sobbing, his vessel’s ribcage heaving uncomfortably in his chest.

Dean was _gone_.

“I know,” Sam said, rubbing Cas on the back, both of them ignoring the body beside them on the floor.

“Wait – I,” Cas pulled back, roughly wiping at his wet cheeks. “You’re not supposed to be comforting _me_.”

Sam shrugged, the weight of the world coming down with his shoulders. “I’ve had to have more practice at this, I guess. And I… I don’t really believe it yet.” His lips spasmed up into a smile. “It’ll hit me. But… I know what Dean is – was to you Cas. You’re allowed to be upset too.”

“I thought taking Lucifer on would be enough. I thought I could take this on. But it was Dean, again, it was Dean. I couldn’t stop any of it.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“We should never have removed the mark.”

“Maybe.”

The mark had been driving Dean to become something terrible, something not himself. But it had been keeping him alive. It would have kept him alive forever.

Putting a hand on Cas’s back like he’d been the one suffering torture for hours, Sam led them both up the stairs and out the door. It was sunny outside. A beautiful new day in this world Dean had saved, again. A beautiful new day Dean would never see.

Sam drove. Cas watched the scenery pass them by. He felt powers he hadn’t had a grip on in years flooding back to him, threatening to overwhelm him. He could feel the thoughts Sam wasn’t quite ready to say out loud sitting at the forefront of his brain.

“What did you want to ask, Sam?”

Sam cleared his throat, but took another few moments before replying. “Did you love him?”

Once Cas would have needed to think about that, and may not have been able to find an answer. Now, it was all he knew. “Yes.”

Sam nodded, like somehow this helped to hear, but he said nothing.

Cas’s phone rang about an hour after that. He almost let it ring out. He mostly kept the phone to converse with Sam, who was sitting next to him, or briefly with Charlie, who was dead, or Dean, who was also dead.

Dead, and not coming back.

But he picked it up, not quite believing he could be reading the caller ID correctly.

“…Dean?”

“Heya Cas.”

Something far vaster than relief rushed through him. “You’re not dead.”

“Nah – made it out, and with perks! Long story. But hey, we’re home – where are you guys? I can’t get Sam to pick up his phone…”

“You’re alive.”

Sam stopped the car and when his wild-eyed attempts to catch Cas’s eye all failed, he held out his hand to Cas, gesturing for him to pass the phone. Slowly, Cas released his tight grip on the cell and passed it over. He looked out the window again. It really was a beautiful day and, somewhere, Dean was alive to see it.

His body didn’t need to breathe, and yet somehow it helped to take a long breath in.

Smiling, and not needing to speak, he and Sam continued on to the bunker, with just a little more purpose and speed than before.

“Hey,” Sam said eventually when they finally passed the sign for Lebanon. “You ever gonna tell him?”

“About what happened to you?”

“No, I mean, about how you feel.”

Cas hadn’t ever really considered that an option. “…I hadn’t planned to.”

“Ok.” Cas could feel that Sam had more to say, but gave him time to figure out what that was while he thought about Dean taking him out to buy beer with him and tell him that he was a brother to him.

“I know it’s scary. I actually don’t know how he’d take it. But not many people have ever said that kinda thing to him. And hey, he did just save the world, right?”

“It’s not exactly a fitting reward.”

“Well, maybe not. But maybe it is. You’d have to ask him, right?” Sam gave him a shaky smile before turning his eyes back to the road. “Anyway, we all need to get better at saying it. You matter to Dean, and to me. We both – we both want you around, both, uh, both _love_ you, y’know that right?”

Cas allowed himself to forget a lot that Sam had gone through an identical, if not even stranger upbringing to Dean. He seemed to manage his words, his emotions so much better. But he really was just as horribly bad at expressing himself as his brother, and the re-realisation of this had Cas feel a burst of fondness for the man he’d once referred to and thought of as an abomination.

“Thank you, Sam.”

“So you’ll tell him?”

“I’ll… think about it.”

“Cool. And if, y’know if you ever need to _talk_ about it…”

Cas was already finding this car ride conversation so painfully awkward he could not imagine ever bringing the topic up again. But since he was sure Sam felt similarly it was touching he would offer.

“I’ll let you know,” Cas said, feeling like he was starting to get a much better idea of why humans spent so much of their time lying.


End file.
